How Health Information Environment and Communication Orientations Affect Health Outcomes: Testing O1-S-O2-R Model Among U.S. Adults

• In Event: HIGH-DENSITY: Effects of Public Information on Health Outcomes

Abstract

This study examines the process through which the general public attend and respond to health messages in a new health communication ecology. Extant studies tend to simply connect mass media use and health outcomes, closing off a number of avenues to theorizing interpersonal communication as a potential outcome or mediator of media effects. To directly address this issue, we explicate the mechanism of how health media use influences health outcomes through its effects on interpersonal communication orientations, whether conventional collaborative communication between providers and patients or online interactive health messaging among peers and health professionals. We explore these relationships using data collected from the Health Information National Trends Survey conducted with a U.S. national representative sample from 2011 through 2012. Overall, these results shed some lights on (a) the relationship between health message consumption and expression effects, and (b) how health media consumption and communication orientations work together to influence health-related outcomes among the general public.

Authors

• Jeong Yeob Han, U of Georgia

• HANYOUNG KIM, U of Georgia

• Yen-I Lee, The University of Georgia

• Eunkyung Kim, No Affiliation